Ramdin rues fielding lapses

Top knock: Guyana Amazon Warriors skipper Denesh Ramdin glances one down the leg side during his 84 off 45 balls against the Trinidad and Tobago Red Steel during the Limacol Caribbean Premier League match at Queen’s Park Oval, Port of Spain on Thursday. Red Steel won by four wickets. —Photo: CPLT20

Mark Fraser

Guyana Amazon Warriors skipper Denesh Ramdin lamented the lapses in the field that contributed to their last ball loss to Trinidad and Tobago Red Steel their Limacol Caribbean Premier League Twenty20 match at Queen’s Park Oval, Port of Spain on Thursday night.

The Warriors coach also spoke about “errors” in the field which helped the Red Steel reach 180 for six in reply to their total of 179 for four.

The lapses he referred to were when Christopher Barnwell dropped a skier off Dwayne Bravo towards the end of the innings and another more difficult chance to get rid of the Red Steel skipper which was missed by Martin Guptill.

Bravo went on to score 67 off 42 balls in a 131-run stand with his younger brother Darren (69 not out) who hit the last ball for six to win the game.

Speaking about the match Ramdin said while they lost a few early wickets, he felt their eventual total was good enough to defend, even without the injured Sunil Narine.

“We lost a few early wickets, we would take 180 any day and try to defend it. They were 50-odd after ten overs and Darren and Dwayne came in and played some good cricket shots and there were a couple of chances that we should have taken that could have changed the game. There was also a missed run out. It could have gone anywhere off that last ball,” Ramdin explained.

“We tried to get as much runs as possible to defend in the last over and I think (Ronsford) Beaton did well to try and defend nine in the final over. It was a good game of cricket at the end of the day,” he added.

Speaking about the absence of Narine, Ramdin said: “He will be out for a couple of days. He will do some treatment and hopefully he will be back for the next game (against the Barbados Tridents today) or the game against Jamaica. He was missed today (Thursday night) but we should have bowled a lot better than we did.”

The Trinidad and Tobago and West Indies skipper Ramdin top-scored for the Warriors on Thursday, hitting 84 off 45 balls with six sixes and six fours to get his franchise to a competitive score. However he insisted that “the better team won on the day,” as he hugged and congratulated his T&T teammate Dwayne Bravo before the post-match press conference.

Amazon Warriors coach Roger Harper was glad to see a competitive game but said they will have to learn from their mistakes quickly and try to rebound against the Barbados Tridents at Kensington Oval, Barbados today.

“We were very competitive. It was a strange game where both teams lost wickets early and the fourth wicket pair got huge partnerships for both teams, so we really have to learn and learn quickly,” said Harper.

“I think we have to understand how to bowl in certain situations and execute better. We have to look at the extras we gave away again and also the errors we made in the field,” the coach added.